


who else can take all your blood and your curses?

by janie_tangerine



Series: mutants in westeros [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV), Wild Cards - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Memory Alteration, Mutant Powers, Mutants, Spoilers for Book 2 - A Clash of Kings, The Author Regrets Nothing, Timeline What Timeline, theon's life sucks in every universe in history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-12
Updated: 2014-08-12
Packaged: 2018-02-12 21:20:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2125050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>where the entirety of Westeros turns into mutants and it’s not good news for most of them.</p><p>Also, where Theon’s mission to Pyke is entirely changed by his own mutation and it means both bad and good consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	who else can take all your blood and your curses?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [outboxed (fallencrest)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fallencrest/gifts).



> Sooo, this calls for background explanations. GRRM, other than ASOIAF, has… another fantasy/scifi series going on. It’s named Wild Cards and it’s a shared universe – basically it’s him and his friends co-writing a ridiculous number of multiple POV books. And I had been wanting to write an ASOIAF AU based on the same premises since I got into it last year, one of the prompts for this round of the exchange was _the AU that’s been niggling in the back of your mind_ and since I had actually an entire Robb/Theon plot set in such a verse I… might have gone with it. The Wikipedia link should provide enough background info on the original work if anyone wants to check that out, but still, the premise is: a virus that rewrites human DNA (named wild card in the original canon) hits the US/NYC/the world. Nine people on ten who catch it die, and out of ten survivors nine mutate into deformed creatures (named jokers in the original canon) and one gets the cool superpowers (and those’d be aces), with the small print that most aces have a life that sucks even if they have the cool powers. That’s everything you need to know to understand what’s going on here. Also I kept the original cards-related denominations since research showed that they’d have been plausible in a middle ages setting. I might have played fast and loose with the timeline here but since the premise is that the virus spreading changes half of it pretend that it all fits. The title is from a Gaslight Anthem song.
> 
> Also, further warnings: references to canonical rape/murders/violent deaths, which are described in more or less vague terms but which still could be disturbing, so thread with caution.
> 
> (Also, there might be more of this verse in the future because I had plans, so we shall see.)

It’s not until a few years after the wild card spreads across the seven realms that maesters put two and two together and realize that it all started with the red comet.

Then again, by that point, even if figuring that out could have meant finding an explanation, it’s wholly unnecessary. An explanation might have been useful right then; a few years after is too little, too late. Maybe the war would have ended differently. Maybe it wouldn’t have. Maybe the White Walkers wouldn’t have been defeated that early into the game, and about _that_ no one complains, but maybe it would have spared the thousands that died because of the wild card before the Walkers could even approach the Wall.

Maybe things would have changed.

That’s not, though, the way it went.

\--

This is the way it went.

Not long after Ned Stark loses his head in front of Baelor’s sept, not long after his son is declared King in the North, the night Stannis Baratheon burns statues of the Seven on Dragonstone, not long after three small dragons hatch their way into the world, not long after most of Joffrey Baratheon’s bastard brothers and sisters meet their end without even knowing why, just before an expedition of men is ready to go beyond the Wall, a red comet is seen by all of Westeros and most of Essos, making its way across the sky in a blaze of red and gold and dark crimson, and everyone who sees it thinks, this could be my luck.

It turns out that about nine on ten are dead wrong, that nine on each hundred will forever regret it and one in every hundred maybe will not.

\--

Mere hours after the comet disappears from view, people fall ill.

The illness spares no one, if they catch it.

Some people aren’t touched by it. (Most of Dorne is not.)

A _lot_ are. (Half of King’s Landing’s population dies within the week, from a fever no maester can cure.)

It lasts a week. Nine people every ten die by the end of it.

One, though, survives.

(The new king isn’t among them. Joffrey Baratheon dies screeching on the sixth day, and only a few unaffected low-level septons perform a ceremony for him before burying him next to his late father.)

\--

No one knows who gave the illness a name.

It was probably some singer in the slums of King’s Landing.

The most widely known story about it was that the man was in his usual inn, an inn deserted by most patrons – the man hadn’t caught the illness, good for him.

Then one of the serving wenches finally walked in, two weeks after the day of the comet, a pair of thin, red and gold butterfly wings protunding from her back, fluttering shyly in the foul air.

The singer had recognized her, then he’d taken a good look at the wings.

Well, they say he said, looks like out of all the wild cards you could draw, you got off lightly.

\--

It sticks.

Out of each ten survivors, nine gain nothing.

The slums of each big city suddenly flourish with all kinds of deformed men. No one knows who calls these people _jokers_ first, maybe it was the same person who came up with calling the illness a wild card, but it sticks, too, and it takes one moon for Flea Bottom to be renamed Joker Bottom. Most of the jokers in King’s Landing are forcibly sent there, and the rest of the city isn’t half as lively as it used to be – and what city would be, when half of its population is dead and gone and most of the survivors are all confined to one single slum?

The same can be said for every other place bigger than fifty souls throughout Westeros.

A good quarter of the recruits at the Wall dies. The expedition beyond it is postponed indefinitely.

Across the Narrow Sea, most of Khal Drogo’s old khalasar dies within the first week and Daenerys Targaryen is left with half her people, three dragons, a pair of dragon wings growing out of her back and making her feel pain in ways she hadn’t thought could exist.

A month after the situation becomes clear, Doran Martell proclaims that Dorne won’t turn out any jokers who might wish to face hospitality rather than reclusion, and that’s when lines of people start heading south.

The only exceptions to this trend are the Riverlands (Robb Stark and Edmure Tully open the gates to anyone who looks for help), and the North (Bran Stark, who doesn’t fall sick, doesn’t want to hear about any of that. _I know what it means to be a cripple_ , he says).

The only Lannister in King’s Landing who seems unaffected is Tyrion Lannister, who has to take the situation into hand when the Queen Regent doesn’t walk out of her rooms anymore and Tywin Lannister follows that example.

What people don’t seem to realize, though, is that only nine every ten survivors draw a joker.

A long time later, someone else with a quick tongue and sharp wit will say that the one lucky survivor will have drawn an ace.

A long time later.

(At that point, Stannis Baratheon will finally realize _why_ , after his fever broke, suddenly everyone he ever attempts to convince of his opinion or the rightfulness of his claim agrees amiably with him without a blink.)

Never mind that it’s a definition that most supposed aces won’t accept, but that’s another story for another day.

\--

The story we’re going to tell right now is an entirely different one.

\--

When the comet flies across the sky, Theon Greyjoy is on a ship headed to the Iron Islands.

He falls ill, same as most of the crew. The ship throws its anchor into the water and doesn’t sail again for a week – good thing they had enough provisions.

A week later, his fever breaks and he walks out on the deck, filthy and hungry and nauseated, just to witness a large number of dead bodies being thrown overboard.

\--

Most of the ship’s crew draws a joker. They’re lucky in the sense that it doesn’t hinder them from doing their job, and everyone just wants to get back to the solid ground, so not long after the last dead body disappears under the sea, the ship sails for Pyke again.

\--

At the beginning, Theon tries to not let it affect the good mood he had when he first sailed. He’s alive, and he still has his letter, and he’s still going home – maybe the islands were unaffected by this absolutely appalling illness. He remembers little of the week he spent bed-bound, but when he finally was healed, nothing felt wrong. So he figures that he got lucky – and he should be grateful his eyes didn’t turn into a snake’s. Or that his skin isn’t covered in scales. It’s in this spirit that when the captain’s daughter shows up at his door the day before they’re supposed to dock he’s more than happy to let her in. He could welcome a distraction. She’s not the woman he’d pursue, and she’s hardly pretty to look at, but she’s not that unpleasant either – she’ll do. Also, she didn’t catch the sickness at all.

He’s all set to let her help him forget all about his dreadful week when he touches her arm.

Later, he won’t know how to put it into words.

In that moment, he sees things.

 _He sees her growing up on Harlaw. He sees everything she remembers of her childhood. He sees her mother smiling down warmly at her and telling her that Father will be home soon and might have brought a present for her from Essos. He sees her entire childhood pass in front of his eyes, and he sees her join her father on his trips and he sees her wondering why all the other girls in her village already have someone courting them while she gets older and everything she has is her father’s passengers sending lewd glances her way. He can sense all her thoughts in just a fraction of a moment, he sees her looking at_ him _as he boarded the ship, he hears her thinking that at least he’s handsome and he’s not thrice her age and she wouldn’t mind being his saltwife if she has to be someone’s saltwife, or losing her maidenhead to him if she had to lose it to someone, and maybe he won’t be cruel and maybe he will be but trying might not harm, and then all those memories don’t wash away but they grow claws and grasp and clutch and they don’t let go and_ –

He lets her arm go as if it burned.

“M’lord,” she asks, “Are you –

“It seems like I’m still somewhat sick,” he lies, or maybe not. Maybe he should have let her go on, but –

But he knows that her mother died in front of her eyes on her fifth name day, he can see it and he can her mother drawing in a last, pitiful gasping breath. He knows she was terrified the day she woke up to find her sheets stained with blood – she was three and ten. He knows what she’s hoping for.

He sees her eyes turn sad and – he shakes his head, reaches out, touches her wrist lightly.

Nothing happens.

Her memories don’t go away, but nothing else happens. He swallows.

“But I guess not that much. Get on the bed,” he tells her, and maybe his voice shakes a bit, and when she reaches for his laces he swallows and shakes his head. Before fucking her, he uses his tongue on her cunt until she’s a writhing mess beneath him – never let anyone say he’s a lousy lover – and when he finally is inside her she’s so wet it almost feels unreal. She looks up at him with blown pupils, as if she hadn’d dared imagine she could get any pleasure from the act, and he tries not to think about the faces of every boy in her hometown who rejected her.

When it’s over, he doesn’t tell her to leave.

He dreams of the day she found her sheets soaked in blood and wakes up with cold sweat plastered all over him.

\--

He’s careful not to touch anyone else. He dons gloves as he leaves the ship, and he doesn’t regain his good mood. His uncle Aeron meets him and he looks as gloomy as the surroundings – Theon hadn’t remembered Pyke to be this grey or this desolated, and he never knew his uncle to be this sour, and something keeps on feeling wrong.

He thinks about the comforting weight of Robb’s letter against his breastbone.

For a moment he wonders why there are so many war ships in the harbor, and when his uncle says _we’ll see_ the moment Theon mentions that he’s come back to take his rightful place he knows he should worry, but he’s too busy thinking about the captain’s daughter – Rylene, her name was Rylene, he asked her before leaving. He thinks about all of the faces she remembers so clearly, faces of men who wouldn’t look at her for more than a moment and he feels sick the same way she had.

He looks for a horse and buys it after his uncle leaves him. Throughout all that time, he’s careful to never ever make contact with the man’s skin.

By the time he runs into a woman who says she’s named Esgred and who’s willing to escort him to Pyke, he’s a bundle of nerves – he’s distracted and blunt when he answers her questions, and in any other occasion he’d have tried to get under her skirts because she’s exactly the kind of woman he likes to bed, but – he should touch her, and he should put effort in it, and he just _can’t_.

“I hadn’t expected to be so distracted that you wouldn’t recognize me, little brother,” she tells him when they finally arrive at the castle and he realizes it was Asha all along.

He’s too tired and his head aches too much to even be angry with her. He’s told that he will see his father in the afternoon.

He’s given a small, damp and dark room that helps nothing with brightening his mood.

He carefully gets washed, picks his finest garments to dress, and puts on a new, thicker pair of gloves. By the end he’s done, he’s sweating even if the room is chilly.

One of the gloves rips on a rail, on the way to the main hall.

That was when he should have realized that things were about to go sour.

Very sour.

\--

“Not in Pyke, not in my hearing, you will not name him _brother_ , this son of a man who put your true brothers to the sword. Or have you forgotten Rodrik and Maron, who were your own blood?”

The moment his father raises his hand, he – he doesn’t know if he wants to strike, but it’s still getting too damn close.

For a moment he’s too petrified to even act – _this wasn’t what he had imagined for ten years_ – but then he realized that it means skin on skin contact and he jumps backwards, shaking his head.

“No, _no_ , don’t –”

“What’s the matter, you’re scared now?”

“I’m not, and I forgot nothing,” He spits, and now he’s angry, and that’s what gives him away. “It’s the – the damn sickness, you don’t – don’t _touch_ me,” he blurts out, and at that two things happen.

Asha, who had been staying on the side, suddenly gasps and takes a step forward.

But then their father puts a hand to her shoulder and stops her.

Then he looks at him.

“What about this sickness?” He asks, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly. Theon swallows.

He tries to put it into words as best as he can. He talks about all of the ship falling ill, he talks about all the sailors turning into – into monsters in the worst of cases, he talks about spending a week in his bed thinking he would die and then opening his eyes on a moderately sunny morning to find out that he lived.

Then he talks about the captain’s daughter.

When he’s done, the room is silent.

And then.

“If similar things had not happened here as well,” his father says, sounding calculating, “I would have a hard time buying this story. But I suppose we still should prove that it’s true.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you!” Theon protests.

“The way you haven’t lied to me about not being at Robb Stark’s beck and call? I doubt that. Go back to your rooms. You will be summoned when it’s time.”

Before he can say a thing, a guard comes by and grabs him by the arm, careful not to touch his skin.

He locks eyes with Asha and – does she look sorry for him?

\--

He spends a day locked in the room, with guards standing outside – gods, what did he do to be treated like a prisoner in his own home? He thinks about the ten years he spent picturing the moment he would finally go back home – he hadn’t imagined _this_. 

When they finally let him out, they bring him into the main hall again. Asha is there, their lord father is there, his uncle Aeron is there, and –

His uncle Victarion is, too.

His father looks straight at him. “Now, how about you prove to us that you aren’t lying?”

“How?” Theon asks, trying to keep his voice from shaking.

“You haven’t seen your uncle in years, I gather. So you wouldn’t know what has happened to him during this time.”

Theon shakes his head.

“Well then. Do what you did with… the captain’s daughter. Tell us something only he would know. Then we shall see. Prove to me that the _Starks_ didn’t raise you a weakling.”

He wants to refuse.

He already dreams about the girl’s memories every damned night, and he sees them when he’s awake, and they’re not particularly bad – surerly her life pales in comparison to his uncle’s.

But he hardly can refuse, can he? He swallows, moves forward, takes off his glove and extends his hand.

Victarion shakes it.

For a moment, he hopes desperately that nothing will happen.

He’s wrong.

It’s a moment, the same as the captain’s daughter, but it’s enough, more than enough, and when he moves away at once, as if the hand he’s shaking is a burning coal, the only thing he can hear is the crunch of his uncle’s wife’s skullbones under his hand as his fist rammed down against the side of her head and blood splattered everywhere.

Everyone is looking at him and he wants to vomit.

“So, what do you say?” Victarion asks. Theon swallows again and looks at him in the eye, hoping that he has the strength to go through this without fainting.

“You wake up every morning thinking that if he walked through this castle’s gates, you – you would smash his head against the pavement the same way you smashed hers,” Theon says, and –

For a moment, one single, fleeting, glorious moment, he feels like he’s won.

He hadn’t known about his uncle Euron getting Victarion’s wife with child – he knew he had been exiled, but he never knew why and from the way everyone’s eyes go wide in surprise, it was because they kept it carefully hidden. His father looks surprised, his uncles look angry and Asha looks worried, but there’s also – maybe fear, in the way they look at him, and he savors it. Maybe now they’ll take him seriously, maybe now –

“I think there is a way you can prove yourself to us,” Balon finally says, and Theon should feel happy about it, but why is he feeling only dread?

“How?” He asks, his voice barely audible. He can hear the unnamed woman scream, he can hear her scream _I’m bearing his son please don’t_ , he can –

“You’re going to King’s Landing.”

At that, Theon feels completely lost. “To – to King’s Landing? Why?”

“Just before you came with your frankly pitiful offer, I received another.” Theon thinks about the letter Robb had written so carefully burning in the fire, not even having been read. “Tywin Lannister is interested in an alliance, and I should think he would be a better choice than Robb Stark.”

 _No_ , Theon thinks.

“But I obviously cannot trust him on his word. I would be a fool if I did. I will pretend to accept it and send you and your sister to King’s Landing to finalize it. When you’re there, I trust that you would be amenable to shake his hand. And the Imp’s, while you’re at it.”

“Why the Imp’s?” It probably wasn’t the first thing Theon should have asked.

“Well, _he_ is the Hand of the King, isn’t he? He might know things that would turn useful. Surely more than the eight-year old currently sitting on that throne, for that matter. You will be doing exactly what you did right now, then you will come back here and tell me their intentions, and then we can discuss your position.”

“Father –” Asha starts, and for a moment Theon hopes wildly that she might take his side.

“Asha, I’m not hearing anything against it. This was a blessing in disguise,” he says, “and I will not hear a thing against this plan.”

“But –” Theon starts, and then his father glares at him in a way that makes his knees tremble, and he closes his mouth at once.

“Just try to take Stark’s side again and you will go to King’s Landing anyway, and your position will not be discussed after.”

Theon doesn’t say anything else.

He wants to vomit.

He does the moment he’s back inside his room. He tries to think about a way to contact Robb, to at least warn him that he can’t come back, but how would he do it? There’s no way he can feasibly send a letter without anyone noticing, and what would he even say in it? _I’m sorry I defected to the Lannisters’ side?_

He throws up again.

He does that again for the following two weeks that he spends locked in his room, because no one has to know and he can’t risk being up and about the castle.

\--

On the ship headed to Seagard, from where they will have to ride to Harrenhaal, where he was told Tywin Lannister is currently waiting for them, he throws up most of what he eats. Halfway there, he locks himself in his room with a piece of paper and a quill and tries to stop thinking about his uncle’s wife’s death for the five minutes he needs to put a few sentences together.

_Robb,_

_I’m sorry I can’t come back. The sickness did something to me, and my father wouldn’t hear of your offer and now I couldn’t come back if I tried._

_I’m sorry._

_Theon_

_Send more men North_

That’s all he can put together – by the time he remembers that maybe he should warn Robb, his hand has started shaking and he can hear a woman crying – is that his aunt, the captain’s daughter or her mother? He doesn’t know.

He –

He can’t distinguish any of them.

He seals the letter, then he finds his sister. She’s glaring at the sea that they’re leaving behind, and she looks every inch the commander he thought he could be if his father agreed to the plan.

And he also knows she doesn’t like this expedition, which is the only reason he’s willing to take a risk and ask her.

“Can you send this to Riverrun?” He asks, his voice barely audible over the noise of the waves hitting the flank of the ship.

Asha turns on her side and looks straight at him. “To Riverrun?”

“Asha, there’s nothing about – about our plans in it,” he partially lies. “I just – he trusted me with that alliance, and I didn’t give it to him, and – we were friends. I know you approve of it as much as our lord father, but – he deserves better than finding out from someone else that I turned my cloak for the bloody Lannisters.”

She takes a good look at him, then at the letter in his hand – his fingers shake so much it’s about to drop off into the ocean.

She takes it. “Fine,” she says, “but that’s all I can do.”

“Thank you,” he replies, and then he runs to his room, grabs his chamber pot and vomits all over again.

\--

Harrenhaal is a blur.

He only remembers Asha talking to Tywin Lannister as if he was her equal, not flinching once under his gaze. He remembers putting on the most brave face he could when he shook the man’s hand and told him he was happy for the alliance – what a lie.

He has no clue of what happens later, because if he thought his uncle was bad, then he knew fucking nothing.

He knows he’s going through the motions, but as he does he can only think about the bodies littering the halls out House Reyne, and if it’s not that, it’s Joanna Lannister’s screams as her last son came into the world and she walked out of it, or that poor croftman’s daughter that had the disgrace to fall for Tyrion Lannister as – as she crumpled on the ground with torn clothes and cheeks streamed with tears. Or Rhaegar Targaryen’s dead children.

And that’s just the surface.

By the time their ships dock at King’s Landing, he hasn’t slept ten hours in five days because all he can see when he tries to sleep is a mingling of memories, from Lannister’s to his uncle’s to the captain’s daughter, and he doesn’t know how he manages to walk in front of the Iron Throne with his head held high. Tommen Baratheon doesn’t have much to say and he excuses himself, delegating everything to the Hand and the queen regent.

“Lord Greyjoy,” Cersei Lannister says when both he and Asha are close enough, “I find you relatively in poor health, in comparison to the last time I saw you. Turning your cloak isn’t agreeing with you, is it?”

He visibly flinches at that, unable to stop it. He can’t even muster the force of will to ask her, _then why are you a lot thinner as well and why does your face look this gaunt and why are you keeping that hair of yours covered when you looked so proud of it not even two years ago_?

“Cersei, that’s not what I would say if I wanted to make sure they do ally with us,” the Imp sighs, and Theon feels horrible when he shakes the man’s hand, because now he’s also stealing the memories of the only person who’s taken his side, somewhat, since he left that ship, and – he should not think about it.

The moment he’s back in the chamber that’s been given him, he vomits all over again.

 _He really thought she didn’t love him_ , is the only thing that he can think of as he thinks about Tysha and the coins falling on the ground in front of her crumpled form.

Then he realizes that Sansa must be in the castle somewhere, and if only he could find a way to free her –

He swallows again and heads downstairs for dinner.

Sansa isn’t there.

He doesn’t know if he’s glad of it or not.

He could tell Asha to press for a hostage exchange, but he knows it would look feeble at best, and in his condition he couldn’t even try to smuggle her out. Could he? And then she’d have to come to Pyke and he’d make the situation worse.

He tries to put a plan together, but everything he sees is castles burned to the ground during the Reyne rebellion, and the fact that the only nice memories not belonging to him that are currently residing in his head have to do with fucking Jaime Lannister, who is apparently a decent person at least to his little brother, isn’t helping at all.

They’re supposed to stay there for one entire week and after the second day he tells Asha that he can’t possibly present himself in public.

“What do you mean?” She asks, sounding mildly worried.

Theon grits his teeth. “Tyrion Lannister was once married to this crofter’s daughter – he saved her life from some bandits and she fell for him and they stayed married for a couple of weeks. His father didn’t like it and so he forced the Kingslayer to feed him a story about the girl being a whore that had been paid to – to make a man out of him or something like that. After that he made all his guards rape the girl, forced Tyrion to do it for last, and he gave the girl a silver coin for each of them, except for his son. Since a Lannister was worth a gold one, at least. Our residing Hand doesn’t know that she never was a whore. And I can’t possibly look at him in the face for an entire week and pretend that _I don’t fucking know_ , Asha. I see that girl’s face every fucking time I close my eyes or try to sleep. I can’t be around anyone named Lannister if you don’t want them to find out.”

Asha swallows visibly, then stares straight at him. “Fine. Fine, I’ll tell them you’re indisposed. But they’ll talk.”

“I don’t care. I just can’t. I’m begging you – no.”

Asha leaves and he falls back down on the bed, his head pounding hard enough that it seems like his skull is splitting open, the same as his uncle’s –

_No._

No, he doesn’t have to think about that, he can’t think about that, he can’t –

 _A Lannister is worth more_ , he hears, along with a golden coin clinking as it hits the ground.

He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until he tastes salt on his lips.

And he can’t help thinking bitterly that Robb would have never put him through this, if he had been with _him_.

\--

Whenever he gets out of the room (not much) he never sees or hears of Sansa. He hears of the Hound having disappeared from the castle a few days after his sickness-related fever broke. The day before leaving, he hears a couple of guards saying that they’d like to know why no one’s letting the Stark girl up and about the castle and why they keep her locked in some room in the Kingsguard’s tower.

Well, at least he knows she’s alive.

The moment he sets foot on the ship again, though, he can’t keep it together anymore.

He gives up on regular meals – most of what he eats, he vomits before even one hour has passed. He can’t sleep properly anymore – the more time goes on, the bloodier his nightmares get, and if he sleeps it’s just out of complete exhaustion and never for long. His hands shake at any given moment, and he wishes it was the worst of it. His clothes are getting unbearingly large as it is – he’s lost so much weight that his breeches, which fit him perfectly before, barely hold themselves up. He’s not filling in his shirts anymore, and his fingers haven’t been this bony since he can remember. He’s glad there’s no mirror around his cabin or he wouldn’t like what he’s seeing at all.

The idea of landing at Saltpans and ride on a horse to Seagard makes him want to hurl at the mere thought – he’s not sure he could ride a horse without falling. His sister does bring him food and water, but he only ever accepts the water, and he’s barely coherent the times he remembers – he’s pretty sure she must have come more than twice each day, and he has no clue of what happens in those stretches of time.

The day before they dock at Saltpans, Asha walks inside the room, then locks the door. He’s awake, and his stomach is contorted in a knot as he thinks about Rhaegar Targaryen’s children laid out and wrapped in Lannister red for Robert Baratheon to see.

“Theon,” she says as she sits down next to him on the bed. “We need to talk.”

He swallows. “Don’t worry. I’ll – I’ll try to keep up when we get off the ship.”

“That’s not what I was going to say.” Her voice feels like pure steel. She’s angry, he realizes. But it doesn’t seem like she’s angry at him. “I can hear you, you know. My cabin is right next to yours.”

Is it? He hadn’t even realize.

“I hear everything you say at night. And I hear you apologize to Robb Stark.”

He doesn’t even try to deny it. There would be no point.

“I have just a question to ask you. If – if I find you a ship to Riverrun, would you manage to keep yourself together long enough to get there?”

For a moment, Theon thinks he’s hallucinating.

“ _What_?”

“You understood right.”

He swallows. He doesn’t know what game she’s playing at, but – but if he knew he was going back to Robb he thinks he could go through the trip.

“I think so. But – why would you do that?”

She scoffs, and laughs, but it sounds so bitter that he’s thrown back by it.

“Do you think I’m enjoying this? I don’t want to win wars by cheating, and that’s what our lord father is doing. Except that he’s cheating by – by using you, and it’s not – it’s not the way I thought we would do it. I was ready to reave for him and I was ready to take what was mine because I worked for it, the same as I worked to prove myself all my life. You can’t handle this. It’s obvious that you can’t, and I don’t blame you – I wouldn’t even know how to deal with it. And I’m damn glad that I didn’t fall sick at all.” She stops for a moment, her hands clenched into fists. “You know, after you left, our mother never really was herself anymore. She’s at Harlaw now, she couldn’t take Pyke anymore. She asks for you every damned time I go to visit here. _Where is my baby boy_ , she asks. Father would know that, since she’s been asking for you ever since you had to leave. I thought that at least he’d tell you to visit her first, but – obviously he’s not, and what would she think of me if she knew I was helping him with a plan that hinges on hurting you like this? It’s obvious where your loyalties really lie – not that I blame you, with the way you’ve been treated since you came back. So – go back to him if you can. I’ll deal with Father. If this kills you – and it looks like it might – you deserve to die where you wish to die at least.”

“Do you want me to tell you –”

“I don’t want to know anything that you might have seen inside Tywin Lannister’s head, Theon. That’s not how I fight my wars and that’s not how ironborns should fight theirs. Tomorrow I’ll find you a ship and pay for it. Don’t worry about the rest and – for what it’s worth, it wasn’t a bad plan. The one you had.”

His throat feels choked when he tries to answer – not even two moons ago he would have found words for her, but as it is his head feels like it’s splitting in one hundred different parts and he doesn’t even know how to put a few words together, never mind actually answering her.

“Thank you,” he finally manages to say. And then he belatedly realizes what it is that she had said.

_If this kills you you deserve to die where you wish._

And – that’s when it hits him fully.

Even if he goes back to Robb, he can’t live like this. He’ll still have four different people inside his head and he doubts it will get better, not when it just got worse.

Well, she’s right. At least, he supposes, he’s going to die with someone who used to give a damn, because he doubts that Robb will be that welcoming towards him, not when he turned his cloak like that.

“I’m sorry,” Asha says before leaving, her gloved hand briefly squeezing his shoulder.

\--

The next day, she drags him by the arm towards a small ship that looks fit for floating on a river rather than braving the sea.

He hears her tell the captain to bring Theon to Riverrun without fail, and she hands him a bag that he supposes might contain enough gold to pay for the passage.

Then she turns and looks about to leave.

“Asha,” he croaks, his voice sounding so shaky that he almost flinches at it. Then again he’s not seeing her face right now. He’s seeing Rhaenys Targaryen’s dead eyes.

“Yes?”

“I hope – I will not inherit any throne. I should hope you do.”

“I don’t know about that, but thank you.” He thinks her lips curl up in a small smile before she disappears in the crowd.

He turns towards the captain.

“How long to Riverrun?” He asks.

“Three days, give or take.”

Fine. He can hold on three days. He can.

Or so he tells himself as he closes his eyes and sees those two pitiful, small broken bodies laid out as some kind of ghastly present wrapped in dark crimson.

\--

The captain is true to his word. He leaves him at Riverrun’s gates, and Theon doesn’t even have to think much about the course of action. He’s so weak that walking is a serious effort, and he still wants to hurl what water he’s drank in the morning. His clothes are filthy and he thinks he is as well, and when he walks up to the guards he has to stop himself from screaming. He knows that the faces of two of the Lannister guards who threw silver coins at that poor girl can’t be looking back at him, but that’s what he sees.

“Are you from one of the villages ‘round here? If you want shelter, you’re welcome, but there’s a lot of people inside the gates.”

Theon is too tired to make sense of it.

“No. No, I’m here to see the king.”

“The king? And who are you to have business with the king?”

He breathes in, then holds out his wrists.

“I’m Theon Greyjoy. I want to turn myself in,” he says, and he doesn’t notice the guards’ eyes go wide in surprise, because he’s fainted before he can.

\--

He wakes up chained in a cell in the dungeons, but that’s exactly what he had expected – he doesn’t even try to protest the treatment. Of course they’d put him there. He turned his cloak as far as everyone is concerned, why wouldn’t they? He leans back against the wall, feeling grateful for its coolness – it doesn’t do much to help with his everlasting pounding headache, but it’s something.

He doesn’t wait for long until he hears someone walking quickly through the hallway. And then –

“Your Grace, I don’t think it’s wise –”

“I will talk to him alone.”

He hasn’t heard Robb’s voice in months and he sounds so incredibly tired, more than he was when Theon left for Seagard, and for a moment he hopes that when he walks in he’ll see Robb’s face rather than – than someone that the other people in his head knew.

When Robb walks inside the cell, after telling the guard to leave, at least that wish is granted, because he doesn’t see anyone else in his place – just curly auburn hair and blue eyes that are cautiously distant when he walks in and then turn to horrified.

“What in the seven hells happened to you?” Robb asks, taking a few steps forward, and – he’s not wearing gloves.

“Stop,” Theon rasps. “I’ll tell you everything in a moment, but – please don’t – don’t touch me if you don’t have any gloves on.”

“What –”

“It’s – it’s – please, Robb. I’ll explain it all. Just – just don’t.”

“All right. All right, I won’t,” Robb says, kneeling on the ground next to him and – thankfully – not attempting to touch him. “I – I got your letter,” he says after a minute.

“So Asha did send it after all.”

“Your sister? But – weren’t you –”

“Did I turn my cloak for the Lannisters? I never wanted to,” Theon says, and Robb looks even more worried – damn, his voice really must sound terrible.

“I gathered, since your father attacked the North a short while ago. Good thing _I had sent more men._ That was what you were trying to warn me about, wasn’t it?”

He nods once. “Right. I suppose it’s time I start. I imagine you would know more than I do about the – the sickness, wouldn’t you?”

“How can I not? Most of the survivors in the Riverlands came here after we said that we’d welcome everyone. If you walk around the village it looks like a mummer’s farce. But – you caught it?”

“Not the kind that turns you into a mummer’s farce, Stark. I caught – another.”

“And what kind was that?”

“Seeing inside others,” he answers, unable to find a better phrasing. “If – if I touch someone – I see all their memories at once. And then they stay with me. It happened with a girl on the ship, and then – I went home. My father – he burned your letter before even reading it. He said he’d never ally himself with someone named Stark as long as he lived, and then – he was about to strike me. I tried to stop him, because I didn’t want to risk it happening again, and – I had to tell.”

“All right. And?”

“And he wanted to have proof it was true. By asking me to do the same with my uncle.”

“Euron?”

“No, Victarion.” He shudders, then takes a deep breath and keeps his gaze on Robb’s hands – he’s keeping them curled in his lap without moving them. “He had his proof. And then he said – that if I wanted to prove myself to him I should – go with my sister to King’s Landing. He had already decided to accept an alliance from Tywin Lannister but he wanted to have proof he would stay true to it.”

“He didn’t ask you to –”

“Yes. He said I was to – to do that same thing with both him and Tyrion Lannister and then report to him. I couldn’t – I couldn’t say no. He said that if I did it then he’d – consider my position as far as inheriting went, since he obviously was in mind to behave as if my sister wasn’t born a woman.”

Robb’s face has gone paler. He swallows again and closes his eyes – he can’t look at him anymore, not now.

“I did it. But – this isn’t – I can’t handle it. This – everything in my head, it’s not something I can ignore. I dream about it at night and I see it when I’m awake. I close my eyes and I see dead Reynes if I’m lucky.”

“If you’re _lucky_?”

“You don’t want to know. And – you asked what happened to me. If I eat, I throw up. I can’t sleep through one entire night. And – and it’s getting worse.”

“What do you mean with worse?”

“Robb, I can’t take any of this away and I can’t live with it. My sister understood it and – she bought me a passage to Riverrun instead of bringing me back. Because – because she knew this is where I wanted to be if I had to die.”

“What in the seven hells are you going on about?”

Theon’s eyes snap open – Robb is inches from him and looking _furious_.

Well, at least this is more than he expected.

“Robb, I’m dying. There’s no way around it. And – I guess I can’t do anything about it, but – I can make up for turning my cloak.”

“You _didn’t_ –”

“It’s as if I did. Just – give me a few hours to sort myself together and I can write down Lannister’s plans for you. It’s all in here – I just need time.”

Robb’s face goes even paler at that, and it’s obvious he’s itching to reach forward and touch him.

“You don’t have to,” he finally says, sounding almost as pained as he does. “I don’t need you to do it. I don’t even want you to put yourself through it.”

“And that’s exactly why I want to do it,” Theon snorts. For a moment he feels finally like the world has righted itself. “Robb, there’s no way I’ll last another moon. Not with the way things are. If I can help you win this stupid war before I die, well, I can think of worse ways to go.”

For a moment, neither of them says a thing. Then Robb takes a deep breath and gives him a nod.

“Fine. Fine, but we’re doing it my way. First – well, I guess I could do with some information. Since – since Roose Bolton turned his cloak.”

“What? When?”

“A while ago. When it seemed like you had disappeared into thin air his bastard went and assaulted Winterfell – turns out it was on his orders, since he didn’t like the way things were going. Thankfully I had more soldiers sent up there, thanks to you, and it never came to pass, but I lost a good number of men since they were his. And – when news of the attack came, I was at the Crag.” He stops, looks down at the ground, and for a moment Theon wonders, _is he deciding how much of it should he tell me? Why would he?_ “I – I was suffering the consequence of an arrow wound, and I thought my brothers might as well be dead. Lord Westerling’s daughter was there helping me tend the wound, and – the next morning, I couldn’t very well leave a spoiled maiden behind, could I?”

“Wait. You’re married?”

“It was the right thing to do. And – and she deserved better. And the Freys withdrew their alliance. Now, while it looks like Renly made up his mind and decided to support Stannis, I thought I would send them an alliance proposal, but if they don’t accept it I can’t afford to lose the Frey alliance. I’m trying to – to gain them back as it is, but the entire situation could be faring a lot better. So I won’t say no if you want to tell me, but I won’t force you to do it.”

“Now that I know, do you think I wouldn’t?”

“Fine, _fine_ , but now I’m going to get someone to unchain you, then you will be given a room upstairs, you’re going to take a long bath and put on clean clothes and you’re going downstairs and dine with me.”

“What? Robb, I can’t even eat without throwing up.”

“Then you’re coming downstairs and you’re sitting at the bloody table. I’m not going to keep you hidden here or in a room when – when you’re going to do such a thing for me, all right? People have been telling me I was wrong to send you since you left and I’m not going to let anyone assume they were right any longer.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says tiredly, because it doesn’t.

“It bloody well does. And if anyone thinks that I just bought into a lie, just looking at you should set them straight.”

“Robb –”

“ _Theon_. We’re doing it my way.”

The tone isn’t admitting rebuttals and frankly, he’s too tired to even try. He’s already glad enough that Robb believes him, that he’s not leaving him to rot down here and that he hasn’t asked for further proof.

Maybe he should have wondered why Robb didn’t question his story once, but he’s hardly in his right mind.

\--

He has to admit that Robb was maybe right about the first part of his plan. Taking a long bath and putting on clean garb does moderately help – it doesn’t stop the headaches, the crippling pain to his head or the voices screaming at him, but it helps… focusing on something else.

Showing up downstairs, though, is an entire other problem.

When he walks inside the room, a guard escorting him, he finds himself in front of all of Robb’s bannermen, of Lady Stark, of another woman he doesn’t recognize and of a pretty brown-haired girl who was sitting next to Robb, so she obviously has to be his wife.

Lady Stark looks horrified. Everyone else but Robb looks wary.

He supposes that even if he explained the situation, not many of them bought it. Except that now that he notices, some of the bannermen who sided with Robb in the beginning are gone, and not just Roose Bolton. Some died, he has to assume.

“My lords,” he croaks, taking his place at what is the only empty seat, so he supposes it’s where he should sit. It’s in between Lady Stark and Robb’s pretty young wife, who introduces herself as lady Jeyne Westerling. He shakes her hand with his gloved one and he can’t help notice that Lady Stark looks increasingly worried on his behalf – well, this is new. He tries to not pay attention to Joanna Lannister’s screams in the back of his head as he takes that seat.

Then he figures he should break the silence.

“I don’t know how much His Grace told you, but – I can assure you I never meant to defect and I will do my best to make up for it,” he says slowly, and the stares don’t become any less hostile, but at least it was something.

“And pray, why should he trust someone who allied himself with the Lannisters?”

His head snaps to Robb’s other side – it’s the woman he didn’t recognize. Lady Jeyne suddenly looks embarrassed.

“Mother –” she starts.

“I am only concerned on His Grace’s behalf. Who says he’s not playing some kind of game?”

Theon stares for a moment at the goblet of wine in front of him, then looks up at her.

“My lady, I don’t believe I had the pleasure, but I am really not playing for both sides.”

“That would be lady Sybelle Westerling,” Robb supplies. “My lady’s wife mother, and – _Theon_?”

He hears Robb, and he doesn’t.

The moment he says that name, he freezes.

_Lady Sybelle Westerling._

He’s sure he’s never heard of a Sybelle Westerling in his life, so why does it sound familiar?

Well, he can pretend as much as he wants, but if he never heard it, then it had to be someone else that he stole memories from. He rules out his uncle or the captain’s daughter. That leaves –

That leaves the Lannisters.

“Theon?” Robb sounds worried now, but Theon can’t pay attention to him.

He can’t, because –

Lady Sybelle Westerling, Lady Sybelle Westerling, where is that he knows it from, where is it that –

Before he’s even realized it, he stands up, his hand shaking so wildly that the wine goblet falls on the white cloth covering the table, staining in deep red.

Then he stares at her, and – and the words are out of his mouth before he can stop them.

“You – you really can’t have told me that with such easiness when that’s exactly what you’re doing?”

The entire room falls silent.

And the thing is, he knows everyone will call him a liar in a moment, but he keeps his stare on her and for a single moment she looks – she looks afraid.

Damn.

He sees her lips part and he slams his hand on the table – he feels his shaking fingers hit drenched cloth.

“Tywin Lannister received at least three of your letters – the first was just after the wedding. He contacted you first and asked if you were _amenable to look at things from a different perspective_ , because – because your daughter might have just become a queen, but to a king who wasn’t winning any war, and you answered asking him the details, and – he received one letter just three weeks ago, one that said that you accepted his proposal as long as your daughter went to a _suitable Lannister_ after the wedding.” He’s reciting the letter by heart now, and he’s staring at his hand stained with red wine when Lady Stark grabs his wrist and tugs so that he’s looking at her now.

“ _Which_ wedding?” She asks, her voice sounding hard as steel.

Theon thinks about those letters in the deadly silence that follows – he can see that everyone is petrified, and no one is daring to speak, and he knows even too well that what he says next will be what might convince her, at least, that he’s not lying.

But he can see those letters even too well now, all written in a steady penmanship by a hand with black skin and bony, skeletal fingers.

“Your brother’s, my lady. A – a wedding at the Twins. With – with a lady Frey. To be held a way longer from the time that letter was sent just so that proper arrangements could be made. The plan – the plan was to slaughter everyone after the bedding.”

Lady Stark gasps.

Lady Westerling stands up at once. “He’s lying!” She shouts, sounding outraged, but to Theon’s ears it feels so false he could vomit all over again. “He’s making it all up! There is no wedding to speak of and everyone knows it!”

“Actually,” Robb says, and he sounds sick. “Actually, this morning I received a raven from the Twins agreeing on that proposal. They said they would send out two sons of Lord Walder’s to discuss the details but they would be more than happy to marry their lady Roslin to my uncle to make up for my mistake. I was planning to share the news this evening, but I did tell my lady mother first. I guess I didn’t need proof that he wasn’t lying, but I think I have plenty of it now, my lady. Don’t I?”

He would, Theon thinks, but – but the moment is over.

He put effort into singling out those letters, into remembering every word in them, into ignoring all of the other memories pushing at his head and –

And he can’t anymore.

He knows he’s hearing himself screaming as he crashes to the ground, but he’s entirely beyond caring.

 

Theon screams for the umpteenth time from inside the room he’s in and Robb stands outside, wishing he could go inside, but he wouldn’t let the maester work in peace and he knows that.

His great-uncle and his mother are right behind him and they’re both sending him sympathetic looks, which is – not enough.

The maester they sent in a while ago finally walks out, looking defeated.

“How – how is he?” Robb asks.

“Your Grace,” the master answers, looking… troubled, at best. “I’m afraid there aren’t many good news to share. He’s – he’s not going to last two days, I think.”

“Not – not two days?”

“He’s running a fever – it’s as if he caught the sickness all over again. He’s delirious half of the time and the other half he asks for you to come so he can tell you whatever it is he thinks he should tell you. He’s – quite insistent on that point. Also I tried to get him to eat something but it’s a lost cause. It’s not even him, it’s that his body will not accept it.”

“I understand. Thank you,” Robb says, and he hates how defeated he sounds, but what else should he do?

He takes a deep breath as he watches the maester leave, then he turns back towards his mother and his uncle.

“I – I have need of the both of you. Mother, please, would you go and see how Jeyne is doing? You can reassure her that I am not going to annul the marriage on account of something she had no hand in. But I really need to be here.”

“Of – of course,” his mother answers. She turns her back on him and heads for the other end of the hallway – she didn’t look too happy with his choice, but he’s not going to argue about it now.

“Uncle. I need you to come inside with paper and a quill. Plenty of it. I wasn’t going to ask for any more, not after he just saved my life, and not only mine, but if telling us is what he wants then I can hardly say no. But I’m not going to – I can’t just stay there and write it down.”

“I understand,” the Blackfish answers, his voice full of sympathy. “I will fetch quill and paper at once. I also suppose I should keep my mouth shut about anything that might go on inside that room.”

“If you would,” Robb agrees. The Blackfish leaves and Robb takes another deep breath and walks inside the room.

The thing is that he wants to either scream or hit something or, even better, take Balon Greyjoy’s head with his own hands, but he can’t do any of that right now. He needs to hold it together until this is over, whichever way it ends, and the last thing Theon needs right now is him being angry, even if it’s on his behalf.

Never mind that he would like to think of a way to put a stop to this, because the last thing he wants is watching Theon die in front of him just when he came back, but if there’s nothing else he can do then he’s going to damn well soldier through it.

He walks inside and closes the door before taking off his shoes and sitting on the bed. Theon is indeed feverish, and he’s shaking all over, never mind that Robb can see his collarbones peeking out sharply from the shirt he’s wearing and fuck, when was Theon this thin in his life?

He can’t hear what Theon’s muttering against the pillow, but the moment he puts a hand on his shoulder he startles awake, and he looks panicked before he seems to realize who he is.

“Robb?” His voice is so shaky it’s barely audible.

“Who else?” He doesn’t ask something stupid like _how are you feeling_.

“Oh. Good. I have to –”

“Wait. My uncle is coming in and you can tell him while I stay right here.”

“There’s no need –”

“I’m not leaving you to go through it on your own, idiot. You don’t even need to. What you did today was more than enough –”

“Robb, if I don’t tell you then I’ll have kept all of this inside my head for nothing. And I can’t – I can’t accept that. I want to – I want to go knowing at least it was useful to someone, all right?”

Robb nods and doesn’t even try to put an answer into words.

His uncle walks inside a moment later, good thing that because Robb is about to start crying. He has paper and quill, as promised, and he heads for the small desk in the room.

“Whenever you’re ready, my lord,” he says curtly, and Theon takes in a shaky breath and starts talking the moment Robb’s arm wraps around his waist.

\--

It takes them hours.

By the time they’re maybe halfway done, Robb wants to just put an end to it – Theon is perfectly coherent half of the time, but the other he changes topic entirely and instead of talking about Lannister’s plans for the ironborn alliance or about how he swayed Bolton to come to their side he launches in detailed and grimy descriptions of his aunt’s corpse as his uncle beat her savagely. Or about the way Aegon Targaryen’s body looked small and crumpled and broken into pieces . Or about a lot of other things Robb would have rather not known.

He keeps his arms around Theon, tries to rub his back or to tell him to take a moment, but it’s not really that much help – they’re done by the time the sky turns violet. The Blackfish has written so much that it looks like a small book, and Theon is sweating all over and asking for someone named Tysha to please just stop crying, and he looks more dead than alive by now.

“Robb, if this doesn’t win us the war for good I don’t know what will. I think it’s enough,” the Blackfish says after Theon doesn’t come back to himself for an entirely too long time. “I’m going to leave you alone.”

“Thank you,” Robb chokes, and wraps his arms around Theon’s thin, bony waist even tighter – as if it’s going to make a difference. He wishes he could touch him without gloves at least, but he’s not going to give him more memories to deal with just right now.

The door closes and Robb lets a few tears escape his eyelids. That’s when Theon stops asking for Tysha and blinks a couple times, and then he looks at him with recognition in his eyes and Robb wants to cry even harder.

“I wasn’t done,” he says feebly.

“It was more than enough. Please, Theon – you did enough, all right? Just – just stop. You can stop.”

He gives Robb a soft nod before scrunching his eyes close, his hands digging into Robb’s shoulders hard enough to hurt.

“If only my head did,” he blurts, his voice barely audible. “Dying in silence is too much to ask, isn’t it?”

Robb doesn’t even try to stop himself from crying, too, though he tries to keep himself in check.

“Damn you, I don’t want you to die. You know that, right?”

“Why do you think I came all the way to bloody Riverrun to do it?”

Robb runs his fingers over Theon’s forehead, brushing away damp strands of hair, and if only he could do something –

“Fuck, I can’t – if only it was painless,” Theon groans again.

“Does it hurt that much?”

“I feel like my head is fucking bleeding from the inside out,” Theon says, falling back agains the cushion, his eyes going glassy again, and Robb wants to scream –

Except that –

_Bleeding from the inside out._

He doesn’t even think before taking the decision – he has to try, consequences be damned, and if it doesn’t work – at least he will have tried.

He grabs Theon by the shoulders and shakes him.

“Theon – Theon, please, I need you to listen to me a moment, all right?”

Theon shakes his head once, obviously forcing himself to focus. When he looks back at him he looks like someone in such pain that Robb can’t even begin to fathom it.

“What –”

“There’s something I didn’t tell you, before,” he says quietly. “When you said that your sickness didn’t turn you into a mummer’s farce. I didn’t tell you that I caught it, too.”

Then he reaches for the knife he keeps on his belt.

“Robb, what –”

“Just look at me.”

He takes the knife and slashes a bit at his arm – nothing serious, but enough that blood flows out.

Then he takes a deep breath.

Only his mother knows of what he can do.

Jeyne doesn’t, even if she was the one who nursed him through the sickness, which caught him later than most of the realm. He never told because he had figured it was an ill-advised idea, especially in his position and especially in the current situation. And especially considering the nature of what happened to him.

What only Lady Catelyn has known until this moment is that Robb Stark did indeed catch and survive the sickness, and that he came out of it not only without any visible signs, but changed as well.

His fingertips start to glow, faintly at first until the aura turns to a solid gold, and then he runs them over his wound.

It closes seamlessly at once.

He looks back at Theon, who’s watching him with wide, wide eyes and his lips slightly parted.

“You – you –”

“I told you. I caught it as well,” Robb says quietly. “Just – I was luckier, I suppose. Now – you saw what I just did, right? It was bleeding. I healed it. And I didn’t need skin on skin contact.”

Theon’s eyes widen in understanding. “Could you –”

“Take those – those memories that don’t belong to you away? I don’t know. I never tried it on anything other than flesh wounds. I wouldn’t know what I’d be doing. But – we can try, right?”

“Please,” Theon answers at once, fresh tears falling all over his cheeks, and Robb doesn’t need more encouragement than that.

“Very well. I can – I don’t know if I can do it, but – all right. Listen to me, can you focus on just one? Try to only focus on the captain’s daughter.” Robb figures that it would be the easiest to deal with.

“All right,” Theon whispers, and then closes his eyes and lays back on the cushions.

Robb takes in a deep breath and puts his fingertips on Theon’s temples, then closes his eyes and thinks, _now_.

He tries to envision an open wound where his fingertips are, and he feels the warmth raising through his wrists and up his arms, same as it always does when he’s healing a wound, and – there’s nothing that might be a connection, and he certainly doesn’t see anything that Theon might be seeing, but he feels some kind of pull that calls for his hands to stay where they are and he keeps them there until it’s gone and the gaping wound he was picturing is healed.

He lets Theon’s head go at once. He opens his eyes at once, taking in short, shallow breaths, and he’s sweating even more.

“Tell me if it worked,” Robb says, knowing that his own voice sounds shaky, and Theon closes his eyes again, and –

And when he opens them for the second time a while later, a while that probably wasn’t much long but that felt like an eternity to Robb, there is only wonder in there.

“She’s gone,” Theon says, as if he barely believes it. “She’s gone, Robb, how did you even do that?”

“I have no clue.” And it’s true – he doesn’t. He doesn’t have a clue of how he heals flesh wounds for that matter, but for the first time since Theon showed up with chains around his wrists and a death sentence hanging on his head he allows himself to feel moderately hopeful.

Still, before going ahead, he wants to make sure of what he’s doing.

“So – is she gone completely?”

Theon closes his eyes, seems to think about it, and then –

Then he opens them again, and he doesn’t look as elated anymore.

“I don’t – I don’t remember the journey.”

“What?”

“It’s – it’s weird. I – I _know_ I boarded that ship. I know I caught the sickness. I know I slept with her. But – I couldn’t tell you how she looked like or how the ship did or how her voice sounded.” His voice is bordering on panicked right now, and of course it would, it would because if he forgot everything related to the captain’s daughter it means –

It means –

“Go on,” Theon says before Robb can voice it, his voice still shaky but somehow managing to sound determined.

“Theon, if –”

“Go on.”

“I can’t – I can do it with the Lannisters, but – you can’t be asking me to take away your uncle’s memories.”

“Do it.”

“I can’t! You won’t just forget him if I do it, you will –” He wants to say _forget all of them_ , because saying it out loud would just make it even truer, but he can’t in good conscience do something as huge as that. “Maybe – maybe this will be enough to get you through another day or so and we can talk about it later.”

Theon shakes his head and his hand reaches out, bony fingers wrapping around Robb’s wrists with a strenght that he wouldn’t have guessed from someone who looks that malnourished.

“Robb, I can’t take another hour of this. And – and I know what I’m asking you, but – you didn’t do this to me, did you? I will – I will _know_ them anyway, and considering that right now it’s just two of them that I really would rather not forget? I’ll take it. Do you think I want to live with the faces of every damn person my uncle killed in his entire life? Go ahead.”

Robb is pretty sure that he’s crying, if anything because he’s tasting salt all over his mouth, but is he even in a position to refuse when Theon looks this sure of it?

“Fine,” he rasps, and moves closer on the bed, cupping both of Theon’s cheeks in his gloved hands, his thumbs smoothing over cheekbones that shouldn’t be that sharp. “Fine. Tywin Lannister next.” He says it just because it seems like that is the most disturbing set of memories not belonging to Theon currently residing in his head, so he might as well go through it first.

Theon tells him he’s ready.

The first time had been a lot smoother – now he still pictures a bleeding wound in his mind as his fingers glow gold again, but it’s a lot harder to knit together, and Theon screams all along, so much that Robb wishes he could just stop, but he doesn’t want to do it midway, especially when he has no clue of what he would end up damaging.

When the pull is finally gone the glow disappears and he moves his hands to Theon’s shoulders as he takes in deep, long breaths. His face is drenched with tears and Robb is starting to think that he will end up killing him before everything else does if they keep on like this.

“We’re doing the rest tomorrow,” he decides. “I’m not going to make it worse.”

“No.” Theon’s voice is feeble, but he still sounds as if he’s wholly convinced of this. “No, you’re not. It – it hurt, but now it doesn’t anymore and – you can’t imagine – please finish this. You’re not making it worse. Please.”

“No need to ask. I will, just – I hate this. I hate this.”

“That’s hardly your fault, is it? Go ahead.”

“Then – Tyrion Lannister now. And if you want to stop for a bit after –”

“I’m not.”

Fine then. He puts his hands back on Theon’s face again. His fingers glow again under his gloves.

Theon doesn’t scream as loudly as before but he still does – it’s nowhere near as easy as the captain’s daughter’s memories had been, but it’s significantly less painful than fucking Tywin Lannister’s had been. By the time Robb’s done, Theon looks wholly exhausted, but his eyes are clear and it seems like his fever has gone down a bit.

“Are they gone?”

“Yes.” He’s never heard Theon sound this relieved.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait tomorrow morning for –”

“I wouldn’t change my mind.”

Robb doesn’t ask him if he’s sure a last time.

He puts his hands back in place and tries to keep himself together as Theon screams himself hoarse all over again. He doesn’t even know how long it takes until he’s finally, finally done, and when takes his hands away Theon falls down against the pillows, as if he has no strenght to hold himself up anymore.

“Theon?” Robb asks, suddenly worrying that he has pushed too much, that it went wrong, but then –

Theon opens his eyes and looks straight at him and he’s crying again, but Robb doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look this relieved in the ten years they knew each other.

“You don’t even know,” he says under his breath, sounding utterly and completely amazed.

“I don’t know what?” Robb asks, getting down on the bed and wiping at the dampness on Theon’s face with his gloved thumb.

“How peaceful it feels now.”

At least that.

He should tell Theon that he might as well change his mind in the morning, but now it’s not the time.

“Then how about you get some sleep?”

Theon gives him a faint nod and turns on his side, and for a moment Robb ponders what he should do – it’s well past dawn, and he knows he’s expected to deal with the fallout of this entire situation, but he’s dead tired and he knows that his uncle will buy him time if needed. Never mind that he wants to be here when Theon wakes up if it’s the last thing he does, and so he wraps his arm around Theon’s waist again, cursing that he has to use gloves, and he closes his eyes.

\--

When he wakes up, the sun is setting and Theon is still dead to the world. Robb is everything but surprised considering how little he must have slept lately. He debates leaving the bed if only to call for his uncle and tell him that he needs more time, but he doesn’t need to – Theon stirs a moment later, blinking twice before his eyes focus on him.

For a moment Robb feels completely out of his depth, because no one has ever looked at him so gratefully in all of his life. Then he shakes his head and settles for running his fingers through Theon’s hair, moving away still damp strands from his forehead – he’s still running a slight fever, but nothing to worry about.

“How – how are you feeling?” Robb asks, unable to keep the worry from his voice.

“If I say that I never felt better in my entire life would you believe me?”

Well, if anything, he already sounds a lot more livelier than he did yesterday, which is already enough to make Robb himself feel better about this entire deal.

“I would, but – listen, is – did I do – I mean, did it work like with the captain’s daughter?”

Theon looks down at his lap as he sits up, seems to think about it for a moment, then he shrugs and looks back up at Robb.

“Yes. I mean, I don’t – if you asked me to describe my father I wouldn’t know what to answer you.”

He sounds entirely too calm about it, though, which doesn’t make Robb feel any better about any of this all over again.

“Theon, I’m – I’m sorry, that should have never –”

“Robb, don’t you dare finish that sentence. One day ago I was sure I was going to fucking die and now I didn’t just because of you, and it was all his fault if I was in that situation in the first place. You did everything you could, and I’d – I’d rather be alive and here than remember him if I had a choice in the matter. You don’t have one thing to feel guilty about.”

“Well, you saved my life too, you know. I think we might be even.”

Theon smiles a bit at that, still looking down at his hands. Robb doesn’t even think before reaching out and taking one in between both of his.

“Gods, you really need to eat more.”

“Don’t you tell me. It wasn’t for lack of trying, believe me. And by the way, what’s with that? I mean, do you… heal people now?”

Robb shrugs, not even knowing how he should phrase it. “I fell sick just after receiving that arrow wound. When I woke up with a clear head it was bandaged and I could feel it would scar. Then – then the news from Winterfell arrived. But then when I took off the bandages I realized it hadn’t scarred at all. And – something did feel _different_ , but I couldn’t quite tell why. Then one day I was walking through the gardens with Grey Wind and he cut one of his paws on a rose bush. I touched it and – well, that happened. I only told my mother, though. Before you ask, I thought I should if only because it could be helpful during battles, but – do you realize what would happen?”

Theon opens his mouth, then closes it at once.

“Damn it. A king who can quite literally heal his soldiers.”

“Do you see all the ways it might go very wrong?”

He has pictured all the possible outcomes. At the beginning it might be even helpful. People might think that the gods granted him such a gift, when he knows that it wasn’t the gods, it was only the same red comet that doomed most of the realm. But then he would be asked to make use of it at all times, and he doesn’t know if it’s something permanent or if it’s temporary. He doesn’t know anything about it and he surely doesn’t want to flaunt it for the world to see or to present himself as some kind of demi-god, because he knows that’s what most people would assume.

He already can barely deal with being a king, less alone a king who performs miracles.

“I see them,” Theon answers.

“And how are you feeling now?”

Theon seems to think about it for a moment.

“Empty,” he finally answers. “It’s – it’s not a bad kind of. But. The only place I have real memories of, now, is Winterfell. Everything else is – I know what heppened before then, or after I left for Seagard, but it’s just not there anymore.”

“Good gods,” Robb whispers, and he knows he sounds horrified – he feels horrified. “What – what have I done? I can’t possibly –”

“ _You_ just made sure I’d live,” Theon interrupts him. “It’s not your fault. I asked you. I would ask again. And I can live with it.”

Robb isn’t so sure of that. “How? I took –”

“You didn’t. Robb, please, don’t feel guilty about it. I’d have rather kept them, but how is that your fault? You tried. It was more than I could have ever asked for. And – it could have been a lot worse, couldn’t it?”

Robb reaches out, his gloved fingers tangling with Theon’s.

“I suppose I should go and sort things out,” he says after a while. “You just – rest, ask for something to eat, whatever you wish. If you want to spend the rest of the war lazing around, I think you earned it.”

Theon smiles just slightly, and untangles his own fingers from Robb’s hand. “I can see why you would have to sort things out. I – I will see you later then?”

“Of course you will.” Robb stands up and puts on his boots and cloak, then heads for the door.

Before going out, though, he turns towards Theon again.

“And since there was hardly time to say it yesterday… welcome back.”

The corners of Theon’s mouth move upwards and he smiles back at him the way he used to do in Winterfell – the times he smiled for real though, not that perpetual smirk he had in store for everyone else – and Robb thinks that however things turn out, at least they will be fine.

 

_Epilogue_

 

“I need a word with you,” Robb tells him as he looks out of the window.

The sky is clear outside, King’s Landing looks like a half-dead city if you glance past the Red Keep’s gardens. The room is high enough that it’s not hard to do it. There’s still smoke rising from Blackwater Bay. Robb looks tired but not unhappy, and he’s still donning a crown, which means –

Which means that he might have gotten what he wished for out of Stannis Baratheon.

Sansa is down in the garden – he can see her walking through it, a smile on her face and a pair of small wings that look like a mockingbird’s sprouting from her back. They’re red, the shade of her hair, but you can see blue hues when the sun hits them.

That was why they kept her locked, Theon figures.

“As you wish, Your Grace.”

“Stop that,” Robb sighs, and then motions for Theon to sit on his bed.

“So,” he starts a moment later, “Stannis agreed to my terms.”

“He did? Just like that?”

“Well, if his Hand hadn’t pushed for them saying that it made a lot more sense that I would deal mainly with the North without them having to worry about it, especially now that they really need help up at the Wall, it would have been a lot harder. But he agreed. And they agreed to give us some men when we leave.”

“Too bad for you, I can’t stop calling you _Your Grace_ anytime soon.”

Robb raises his eyes to the ceiling and openly rolls them, and for a moment he looks every inch the almost seventeen year-old he is rather than the king he’s supposed to be.

“That’s not what I wanted to have a word about.”

“What then?”

“I didn’t – I could do without it for now. But if I am to be a king, I need a Hand.”

“So what, you want advice on who you should pick? Go for the Blackfish, if –”

“Theon, I don’t need advice. I already know.”

“Oh. All right. Who would that be then?”

Robb stares straight at him, looking entirely not impressed with him. “Theon, why would you think I came _here_? Well, it’s half the reason I’m here, but still.”

For a moment, Theon can’t help thinking, _he’s japing_.

“You don’t really mean –”

“I want it to be you, Theon.”

And the thing is – Robb is entirely serious about is. It’s written on his face.

“Why? I mean, you do know most of your bannermen will take it as an insult?”

“They aren’t the reason I’m in the position to have a Hand in the first place.”

“Shouldn’t you choose one of them anyway? I’m not –”

“You sided with us, that’s more than enough for me. Never mind that now that your sister is in charge they couldn’t complain about me trying to keep good relations between our realms.”

“I’m not –”

“Theon, you’re only listing reasons why I shouldn’t choose you. You haven’t said no yet.”

Which is unnervingly true, but the point is –

“ _Why_ me?”

“As far as I’m told, you want as your Hand someone who knows you well enough that they’ll know what you’d do in any given situation, and even now, there’s no one better suited. And there will be no one after, if you – if you hear the rest of what I want to ask you.”

_There will be no one after?_

Theon would ask what in the seven hells is Robb going on about, but Robb explains himself first.

“After all, you could… quite literally know what goes on inside my head, wouldn’t you?”

For a moment, Theon honestly has no clue of what to answer.

Robb hasn’t just asked him to –

“Robb, you don’t want me to – to look inside you. You don’t.”

“And what if I do?” Robb asks, his voice not wavering at all. “I’m not going to make you do it, of course. But – it would be nothing too terrible. After all, what battles I didn’t fight with you weren’t particularly worse than the others.”

“No, you don’t understand. I’m going to see all of it, if I do it. And you can’t take it back. It would be the most – the most stupid, dangerous thing you could ever do to yourself.”

“That’s fine. I have nothing to hide from you. Do you think that I don’t know that you can’t be taking this as well as you pretend?”

“Sorry?” Theon perfectly knows what Robb means. He just hopes to shift the topic. Because the thing is – he’s been soldiering on and pretending that everything is going perfectly fine, and if knowing something without having any tangible memories to back it up makes him feel like there’s something indeed missing, well, no one needs to know. Most of all Robb, since he would feel guilty about it, when it’s exactly the one thing he shouldn’t be doing. It wasn’t his fault if things went like this, and Theon’s lucky enough to be standing and breathing and sleeping at night and wearing fitting clothes again.

“Theon. You pretended to be perfectly happy for ten years back when Father was still alive and I knew for a fact you weren’t. Don’t you think I can see through it now the way I could see through it then? I took away nine years of your life, regardless of whether I wanted it or not, and while I suppose it’s better than the alternative, you can’t possibly not suffer from it.”

“Maybe, but then how would having your memories help any?”

“I think it would,” Robb replies, still sounding entirely at ease with the prospect. “I can’t – I can’t really put it into words, and I guess it doesn’t help my case, but – I will bet you whatever you wish that I’m not wrong.”

“Do you think betting on something will convince me?”

“I don’t know, but you haven’t said no to either of my proposals.”

“I just – I don’t see how you can want someone to know everything there is to know about you. I know how it feels to have that knowledge and I wouldn’t wish it on my worse fucking enemy.”

“Will you think me mad if I tell you that it would make me feel a lot better?”

“ _Better_.”

Robb takes a deep breath and looks down at his own hands. “It’s the same reason why I’d like it if you stopped calling me _your Grace_ altogether. I don’t like this. I never liked it. And the moment I tell the truth about what I can do –”

“You don’t have to, you know. Those soldiers you healed after the battle –”

“Won’t tell, but I can’t hide it forever. Never mind that I feel like some hypocrite.”

“A hypocrite? How would you even come to that conclusion?”

“Come on, you did walk through – through Flea Bottom. Well. I’m not calling it the way they do now. That’s so disgusting I have no bloody words for it, and I know for a fact that not counting us and Dorne it’s the same everywhere else. And – I’m not really different. I just was a lot luckier than them. And I should keep that hidden just because I can afford to? I will have to do it at some point. When I do I suppose I can forget about – about the vast majority of this realm seeing me as Robb Stark. But still – it would make people see that there’s no reason to segregate the survivors. I survived it. I’m here. They shouldn’t be _there_. Not when you’ve seen what happened to Tywin Lannister – he surely wasn’t residing in Flea Bottom before we stormed the city.”

“You know, there is something like too much honor in this world. You don’t owe that to anyone. I didn’t owe it to anyone.”

“It’s different. So – well. It would please me if someone who knows me like that existed. Not that I think it would matter to you, of course, but that’s not the point.”

The thing is that he can see Robb’s point here. He still doesn’t understand it, but he sees it.

And Robb is right – he’s nowhere near as fine with his situation as he likes to make others think. True, not many know of his status as far as surviving the sickness is concerned, and even less know the details, so pretending comes fairly easy, but the hard facts are that he doesn’t feel whole because he can’t properly remember half of his life and he doesn’t know how Robb thinks having his memories would help, but – he still sees the reasoning.

Never mind that Robb is right – whatever is in his head is nothing he can’t handle, and it wouldn’t be overwhelming. Never mind that just the fact that Robb offered in the first place is making him feel flattered. That Robb would want to share something as intimate with him – he doesn’t know how to put it into words, but it goes way beyond feeling flattered or honored.

“You really are sure, aren’t you?”

“I am. So – will you?”

“Be your Hand or – look into you? I suppose – I suppose yes to both.”

He’s about to add _but think about it some more_ , and then Robb smiles in such a relieved way that he can’t bring himself to do it.

Well then.

He takes off his gloves for the first time in days – he goes without just if he has to take a bath, just in case – and then breathes in deeply.

“Fine. Just – give me your hand. Or both. It won’t take long.”

Robb holds out both hands without even blinking.

Theon breathes in again and reaches out, tangling his fingers with Robb’s, and then he closes his eyes.

There’s the usual moment when nothing happens, and then.

 _Then_.

His eyes snap open and instead of moving his hands away from Robb’s grasp he grips at them tighter.

He stares at Robb, who is still smiling ever so slightly.

“Do you see what I meant now?” Robb asks. Theon doesn’t know if he sounded so gentle in all the time he knew him.

But – he sees what Robb meant.

As predicted, Robb’s memories are nothing like the others. Robb was right when he said that whatever death was in there that Theon hasn’t witnessed already was nothing worse than the Whispering Wood. There’s nothing that might keep him awake at night.

Of course, there are the first few years of Robb’s life, along with entirely nice memories of his own parents and siblings in Winterfell, which feel only bittersweet to the both of them now, but that’s not the reason why he feels like he might be about to cry and why he understands why Robb wanted him to see for himself.

“That – _that_ ’s the way you see me?” He finally manages to ask, his throat still feeling choked.

“That’s the way I’ve always seen you, Theon.”

And the thing is – they’ve been close friends for years, and he knows that Robb looked up to him, but he never quite realized how much. He had never realized that when he first arrived in Winterfell Robb hadn’t started being around him because he felt sorry for him but rather because he thought no one should look that sad, even if he more or less understood why. He had never realized how much Robb genuinely thought the world of him. He surely had never guessed that Robb felt terribly guilty about lashing at him the day he saved Bran’s life, or that the only reason he did that in the first place was that he had just been an outlet for frustration that had little to do with him.

He had been genuinely taken back by how relieved Robb had been when hearing his explanation of why he had just disappeared. He had felt Robb’s worry as he read the raven he asked Asha to send.

He’s definitely not getting how Robb still feels guilty about his currently missing memories.

And – and –

“You’re wrong,” Theon finally says. “I’m not – I’m nowhere near the person you think. I’m a lot worse than that.”

“Feel free to think what you will,” Robb says, “but I doubt my mind is changing any time soon.”

He moves a bit closer, moving away his hands. His fingers cup Theon’s cheeks again, and Theon hadn’t known how much he had missed skin to skin contact until now.

“I trust that you did see everything,” Robb keeps on, looking slightly nervous.

And Theon did.

He thinks he knows what Robb is talking about.

Thing is – he has seen that Robb loves his lady wife dearly. He didn’t need to look into his head to know – the fact that they stayed married even after lady Sybelle ended up chained in a dungeon and then exiled says it all. He has seen that she loves him back, even if they learned to and when they married they barely knew what they were doing. And he has also seen that he eventually had told her a few things, not all of them concerning being able to heal people.

He has seen the two of them discussing _him_. Both before Robb fell ill and after. Both times she seemed to be at least understanding of it.

And –

“You could have said.” It’s not what he had wanted to say, but it’s close enough.

“I wouldn’t have known where to start. Should I never mention it?”

He shakes his head once, breathing out as Robb’s forehead touches his. He doesn’t know who moves first, but they meet halfway, and the moment his lips touch Robb’s he feels like that weight that’s more or less always been on his shoulders since he started shaking with fever on the ship to Seagard has just been lifted for good.

It doesn’t last long, but he doesn’t think he’s ever shared such a slow, sweet kiss with anyone in his life.

“So, are you with me?” Robb asks quietly a moment later, his thumb brushing against his cheekbone.

“I’m with you now and always, _your Grace_.”

Robb laughs against his mouth, the same way he does in all those memories of the two of them laughing together in Winterfell.

Theon doesn’t think he’s regretting having accepted both offers anytime soon.

End.

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is interested in what mutations I actually took from the original canon (the ones showing up in this fic at least): 
> 
> Theon = Brain Trust/Blythe Van Rennsaeler  
> Stannis = the Envoy/David Harstein  
> Sansa/Dany = Peregrine  
> Tywin = Charles Dutton  
> Sandor = Black Shadow
> 
> (I have plans in this verse for at least a Jaime/Brienne + Lannisters fic and a Wall fic so I might get back to this soon since I finally went and wrote the first one /o\\)


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